clueless- 2 questions

[PottersMom]

could someone explain the "use year" situation again. It seems like more of a "use month" to me
anyway...
We live in HHI- so if I chose HH as my home resort- i would be able to book it 11 mos in advance- correct? (we would do this sometimes b/c as you can imagine, when you live on HHI everyone wants to visit you)
If we wanted to stay at OKW- we could book 7 mos in advance.
We NEVER vacation during the mos of April- August, and NEVER vacation Nov, Dec, and 1st week of Jan. (OUr jobs don't allow us time off during these times of year)
In the slower seasons, in your opinions, will we have any trouble booking studios at OKW, SSR, or BCV only 7 mos out? I can't imagine they would all be booked during those times of year, (otherwise they wouldn't be the slow seasons)
Any advice you can give would be great. We are looking at buying at HH b/c the points are cheaper. Also, when does HH expire?

 

[Caskbill]

Points for HH expire Jan 31, 2042.

Use year is the 12 month timeframe in which you can use your points, which you receive at the beginning of a specific use month.

For example, if your use year month is June, then June 1st every year you receive your annual allotment of points that you can use from that date through May 31st of the next calendar year.

Thus a June 2006 Use Year goes from June 1, 2006 through May 31, 2007. So members with a June use year are still currently in their 2006 Use Year.

You make reservations at your home resort up to 11-months in advance. Making reservations has nothing to do with use year. The points for the reservation must be available for the use year for the dates being reserved.

Example: You have a June Use Year. You want to make a reservation at your home resort for December 2007. That would require 2007 use year points. You could call today to make that reservation, and use your 2007 use year points, even though you won't be receiving them until June 2007. MS will make the reservation and use your 2007 use year points.

If you don't want to go during busy times (busy meaning busy for DVC resorts, and not necessary meaning busy for WDW), you should have no problem booking something at one of the WDW resorts at 7-months. You might have trouble with some harder to get units, such as standard view villas at BWV, or maybe getting VWL rooms (since it's such a small resort), but you should most certainly be able to get into OKW or SSR since those are very large resorts with lots of inventory.

Hope this helps.

 

[tjkraz]

September is probably the slowest month. We've also had a lot of success booking on less than 7 months' notice (sometimes as little as 4 months) in February, March and May. As long as you avoid President's Day weekend and the two weeks around Easter, those winter/spring months aren't too bad at all.

 

[PottersMom]

Thanks for explaining that- makes a lot more sense... AND it was exactly what I wanted to hear. So I guess now we should decide between paying less per point, (HHI) and a longer expiration (SSR). We really need very few points b/c we only plan on using a studio every other year.
Since you're all so good at this- any tips on avoiding pitfalls when buying a resale?

 

[Trebor]

Now that you have it all figured out, I'm going to throw some more info at you, which will probably end up confusing you again.

On thing Caskbill didn't mention is that the only time Use Year really comes into play is if you ever need to cancel a reservation. And this has to do with banking points.

You can bank points from one year to the next. For example, keeping the June use year scenario, if you know you won't be vacationing between June 1, 2007 and May 31, 2008 (or not using all of your points with whatever vaction you plan), you can bank your points into your 2008 use year, giving you up to double the points available for that year. The trick is, you can only do this banking up to six months after the beginning of your use year.

So the problem you can run into is that if you have a June use year and wait until February to cancel a trip you had planned for April, you wouldn't be able to bank those points from the canceled trip into the following year. You'd have to use (or rent/transfer) those points by the end of May or lose them.

If you never cancel a trip, then use year is not something you really need to worry about.